Speaker

Cornelius Greyling is an enterprise transformation practitioner and the author ofDesigned to Drift: Why SAP Transformations Fail Quietly. His work focuses on SAP and ERP transformation, with particular attention to how complex programs lose alignment over time.
His experience spans PMO coordination, readiness governance, testing, integration, data, and cutover across transformation programs. He introduced the Program Drift framework at the UT Dallas Project Management Symposium, with a companion paper forthcoming in the August 2026 edition of the PM World Journal, and is scheduled to present the framework to the UT System PMO Community of Practice that same month. He also authored a January 2025 paper on SAP implementation challenges. He holds PMP, SAP Certified Associate (SAP Activate), and SAP Certified in Organizational Change Management credentials.

 

Why Programs Drift Before Milestones Slip Few programs collapse in a single visible moment, Cornelius Greyling shows how to catch the drift long before milestones slip in his session, "Why Programs Drift Before Milestones Slip". This practical, discussion-driven session shows how quiet misalignment can undermine delivery at every level (project, program, and organizational), offering fresh perspectives and actionable insights to protect value before it is too late. Drawing on his Program Drift framework, Cornelius shows participants how to spot early warning signals hiding in plain sight: in decision logs, RAID logs, schedules, status reports, readiness reviews, and governance actions. Through a hands-on signal-identification exercise, participants assess real examples of program status language and decide whether it reflects genuine progress, delayed decision-making, false closure, or an unresolved risk. Rounded out with audience questions and open discussion, the session builds a practical set of governance questions and an executive attention lens participants can apply back on their own programs. They leave equipped to reassess whether reported progress still reflects real delivery coherence and before it shows up as a missed milestone.

 

Learning goals summary:

• Understand that it's not just about hitting milestones on schedule – it's about whether the decisions, assumptions, and readiness evidence behind those milestones still add up.
• Give PMO, program, and portfolio leaders the confidence to treat quiet misalignment not as noise to tolerate but as a signal they can name, track, and act on early.
• Learn a set of early warning signals to look for in decision logs, RAID logs, schedules, status reports, and readiness reviews.
• Gain governance questions that separate real recovery from false closure, delayed decisions, and optimistic status narratives.
• Return to their own programs with an executive attention lens for catching drift before it becomes a missed milestone.